Multi-family residences in Ensenada, Baja-California, Mexico.
Facing west, this housing project responds to the challenge of designing four residential units in a lot measuring 20m x 20m. The resulting three story units, distributed in a vertical town-house configuration, are allocated 5m of street-front façade, and 12m of depth. The project is located in the proximity of the CICESE's Autonomous National University of Mexico, Ensenada Campus (UNAM).
Materially, the project celebrates a vernacular palette of materials that include a rain-screen made of terracotta bricks, and the cladding of the exterior facades with hand-made Talavera tiles that explore a a rich gradient of traditional Mexican colors. Each of the four voids that demarcate each of the unit's exterior spaces is rendered in a gradient of three different intensities of color. The variation of colors plays with the project's massing, augmenting the overall effect. Outwardly, the variation of colors becomes the project's contribution to the street, both during the day, but also at night where each of these canyons of color functions like a lantern that lights its surroundings. Conversely, the exterior use of colors animates the interior of the units through teh reflection of natural and artificial light.
Team: Daniel Lopez-Perez with Jose Luis Vargas, Angel and Jose Cigala (Construction), Pedro Rojo and Celine Olvera (Interiors) and Jesus Abraham Cardenas (Structure).